Ashes of Heaven (The Plainsmen Series)

by Terry C. Johnston

  His sister pulled the robe back from her face.

  “I want you to bring Old Wool Woman to me,” he said as she blinked at him and rubbed her knuckles into her eyes.

  “Old Wool Woman?”

  “Bring her now. I must talk to her without delay.”

  He waited in his tiny lodge with his wife and older children, as well as the other family who lived with them until the women sewed together enough buffalo hides to make another lodge. By the time Antelope Woman returned with her old friend, everyone was awake in White Bull’s lodge, sitting very quietly, expectantly. Something in the holy man’s tone convinced them of the gravity of this visit from the old woman who was once a captive of the soldiers.

  “Everything you told us two days ago was true?” he demanded as she settled beside him at the fire and let her old blanket drop from her bony shoulders.

  Old Wool Woman nodded. “What is it you are asking?”

  “The Bear Coat did not send you here with a false message for us? Something to trick us into coming to his fort?”

  Her eyes darted back and forth between his, her brow creasing. “No, the Bear Coat is not trying to trick you.”

  “They still hold your niece and your daughter at the soldier fort,” he said, daring to hope that this woman could allay the last of his fears that the soldier chief would attempt some ve-ho-e treachery upon his people.

  “Yes, Crooked Nose Woman, and Fingers Woman too.”

  Laying a hand on her forearm, White Bull said, “Look into my eyes and tell me that the Bear Coat is not holding your family hostage.”

  “Both of them, and the others are still prisoners—”

  “But why did he release you?” White Bull demanded, cutting her off. “Why you? If he didn’t want to keep the others, to kill if you didn’t come here?”

  “No!” she shouted.

  “Yes,” he growled. “He would kill them if you did not succeed in luring us into his trap.”

  The old woman’s hand flew to her mouth. It trembled there, her eyes filling with dread. “No. I will not believe the Bear Coat would do that.”

  “Isn’t the Bear Coat the sort of man who would lie to an old woman, to convince you that you came here to deliver a message for the good of your people?” he explained. “Wouldn’t the soldier chief be the sort of ve-ho-e who would send you to bring us to his fort or kill your family and the other prisoners?”

  “He … the Bear Coat … but he never said anything about any of the others!”

  “Didn’t he tell you to bring us to him or he would kill the rest of your relations? Didn’t he, Old Wool Woman?”

  “No,” she sobbed, hiding her face in her old hands. “He does not seem to be the kind of man who would lie to me.”

  As soon as she looked up from her hands, he watched her face, how her lips quivered, her eyes pooled. Tears spilled down the weathered creases of her face.

  Finally, in a very quiet whisper, he asked, “What can you say to convince my heart so I can believe in this soldier the way you believe in him?”

  Slowly, she reached out and took White Bull’s hand in hers, stroking the back of it the way she would her own son’s. “I have lost most of my relations.”

  “Yes,” he replied. “That is just the reason why I am concerned; you would not want to lose any more of your family to the soldiers. That is why I think you would do anything to keep your daughter and niece alive at the Bear Coat’s fort.”

  Squeezing his hand, her eyes implored his. “I look at you and I see a man who wants me to tell him he really can believe … when he already believes. You are a good man, White Bull. You were a fierce warrior when you were young—a defender of our people.”

  “Yes, I remember fighting alongside your husband,” he said wistfully, recalling early days. “The Cold Maker’s fight at the Buffalo Creek Fort,* and the summer fight against the medicine-gun soldiers too,† when their rifles fired many bullets without reloading.”

  “But in recent years you have become a different sort of warrior for our people,” she continued, still clutching his hand. “You have proved your power as a healer many times over. You have shown your great medicine as a holy man. In both these ways, you are still defending the People.”

  “That is why I must know, Old Wool Woman.”

  “You already know.”

  “Know what?” he asked.

  “Know that I speak the truth about the Bear Coat, about what he offers us if we surrender to him,” she said. “You already know this is the right path for our feet to walk.”

  Now as the long pipe finished its circle and rested once more in the hands of Little Wolf, the Sweet Medicine Chief, White Bull finally stood before the gathering. He was the first to speak this cold morning, as icy flakes began to lance down from the tumble of dark clouds rolling in from the west, snowflakes fluttering in a swirl around those who gathered just outside the great council lodge.

  “I am the last of the Elkhorn Scrapers to talk to you,” he began once he had recited his battle exploits. He looked upon the faces of the chiefs and warriors of both tribes, then gazed at the old men and women who had come to listen on this frigid, stormy morning.

  “The Kit Foxes have told you how wise we would be to go north to the soldier fort and surrender to the Bear Coat.”

  He watched many of the rival Kit Fox Society shift on their haunches, as if they figured he was launching right into the very speech they expected him to make against them.

  “And when I am finished, I am sure many of the Crazy Dogs like Iron Shirt and Little Creek will tell you that war still has a home in their hearts.”

  For a fleeting moment his eyes touched some of the Crazy Dogs chiefs, seeing how they glared at him with distrust.

  “But the path for our feet cannot take us down the road to war any longer,” he declared suddenly, watching how his words stunned several of the chiefs and war leaders of all three societies.

  “No longer can we allow the white man to make war on our women and children, on our villages.” White Bull continued. “There are too many of the ve-ho-e coming. I have dreamed of the desolation it will bring if we do not find a white man to believe. I have seen the People’s destruction if we do not find the right path to take.”

  Some of the heads bowed, their eyes unable to hold the gaze of White Bull as he spoke to them of the ruin he had foreseen in their future. But there, in the crowd, beside the Bear Coat’s half-breed messenger, stood Old Wool Woman. He could tell she was beginning to cry again. But she did so silently, stoically, every bit as bravely as her husband had died. Old Wool Woman looked directly at him as the tears spilled down her cheeks.

  Now it was time to speak of what he had come to know.

  “The path the Elkhorn Scrapers want us to take, to give up our ponies and our guns at the White River Agency, is not the path our people should walk,” he declared forcefully, fighting to keep his voice from cracking with emotion as he remembered his only son.

  “There are too many ve-ho-e near that White River Agency. Too close to the Holy Road. Too close to the sacred hills and to Bear Butte. Much too close to those white men who come to dig for the yellow rocks. The White River Agency is not in our country,” he told them. “This is our country.”

  He watched how that declaration stung many of his fellow Elkhorn Scrapers, warriors and chiefs who were relying upon him to throw his weight in with the rest of his society.

  “This is our hunting ground,” White Bull repeated. “The White River Agency is home to Red Cloud’s Little Star People. Not home to the Ohmeseheso.”

  For a brief moment he looked over at Morning Star seated at one of the four sacred directions around the fire. “Time was, Morning Star thought it best to take his people in to stay at the White River Agency. Had he not escaped last summer, he would be there today—without his ponies, without his weapons.”

  At the eastern side of the compass, another of the Old Man Chiefs, Little Wolf, clearly seethed, restless, with
much to say.

  White Bull pointed to Morning Star, explaining, “But if he had stayed on the White River Agency, Morning Star would not have lost his sons to the soldiers this winter.”

  It was plain to see from the way that Morning Star stared at the flickering flames, that he too was remembering the family he had lost to the ve-ho-e.

  “Who among you is wise enough to say that Morning Star, a leader of my own Elkhorn Scrapers, should have stayed at the agency and let the soldiers take everything from him? Who among you can say it was best that Morning Star returned to our north country to hunt and roam and fight the soldiers—only to lose his sons?”

  The crowd gathered outside the lodge was beginning to murmur, but White Bull had expected this. They were all seeking some way to express their surprise that he had suddenly thrown his weight against the rest of his warrior society who desired to march south.

  “No one of us is so wise that he can say we should continue to make war because that would let the soldiers kill more of our women and children and young men,” he said, his voice growing dramatically quiet. “And likewise, no one is so wise that he can say we should go south to a country that is not ours, to live with a people that are not our people, to last out our days among so many ve-ho-e crawling over that land.”

  Again, White Bull looked at Old Wool Woman. Saw how the tears froze on her old cheeks.

  “As for me, I choose to walk a lonely road,” he explained. “I will go north to see if the Bear Coat’s words are straight. I will look into his eyes and see if he is a man of honor who will keep his promises to my people.”

  For a moment, White Bull could not speak, so overwhelming was the memory of his son, Noisy Walking, still so raw was the remembrance of his death.

  “Many of you will remember how my son came to be killed last summer fighting the soldiers on the Little Sheep River,” he reminded them. “And some of you will remember how he was a long time dying that night after suffering his terrible wounds. Shot three times, stabbed many more than that. Not until sunset did Noisy Walking ask for water. But I told my son he could not have any because that water would kill him.”

  Some of the women in the crowd began to quietly keen with the terrible remembrance of what a father had to deny his dying son.

  “Many times I’ve thought about him since that terrible day of our great victory over the soldiers,” White Bull said. “How I told my son he should not drink because it would kill him … but he died anyway. Many times in the past two days I’ve thought how we are like Noisy Walking right now. How what we want most may kill us as a people.”

  He felt the clot gather at the back of his throat, so took a moment to lick his dry lips before continuing.

  “The wounded among us want to go on fighting, just as Noisy Walking wanted to go on fighting. And that will surely bring an end to us all,” he explained. “Other wounded among us want us to go to a place that is not our country, a place which will kill us all slowly, slowly.”

  White Bull swallowed hard against the growing lump that threatened to keep him from speaking what needed saying. “I am a doctor. You people know me as a holy man. Yet, all my powers were not enough to save my son that terrible day beside the Little Sheep River.”

  Again he looked at Old Wool Woman, finding her smiling courageously behind her tears now. And he realized she was right. He had always known what he had to do.

  So it was that this holy man told the leaders of the Lakota and the Ohmeseheso, “Even if I have to walk this journey alone, I will go north to talk to the Bear Coat about surrender in my own homeland.”

  Around him, the crowd was murmuring in shock, in utter surprise.

  “Last summer all my powers were not strong enough to save my son,” he explained gravely. “I pray that now, in this winter marked by so much death, that my powers will be strong enough to save my people.”

  Chapter 13

  Late in the Big Hoop-and-Stick Game Moon

  1877

  With less than half of the village now on its way east toward the Buffalo Tongue River, which would take them to the soldier fort, Old Wool Woman struggled through each day’s journey with the rest of the old people. Like so many of the adults, she carried a little one through the snow as long as she could, then rested beside the trail. Only when she had recouped her strength did she pick up the child and continue in the wake of the village as it struggled on in its winter journey.

  While each day seemed a little longer than the last, they nonetheless became colder as the women fought to drag the hides off the poles every morning, fought to raise their shelters every afternoon as the sun slid down behind the peaks of the White Mountains. Most everyone was still tired when they arose and broke camp, all the more weary when the young warriors came back along the ragged procession to announce that a place had been selected for their camp that night. They stumbled with cold feet and leaden legs onto a sheltered stretch of bottomland where the wind might not harass them, where they might find enough wood for all the fires, where they could chop through the ice for themselves and the ponies.

  More than once a day Old Wool Woman reminded herself that she had lived through two ordeals worse than this. At least this time they had some lodges and food, buffalo robes and blankets. This time, they had a little hope. Unlike when the soldiers attacked Old Bear’s camp on the Powder River, or when Three Finger Kenzie’s soldiers discovered them in the mountains and drove the village into the winter wilderness to seek out Crazy Horse a second time, the Ohmeseheso now had reason to hope that they would never again be forced to endure a winter march such as this.

  Never again.

  At times during those frightful days she would stop, turn, and look upon their back-trail, hoping to see the faces of old friends, thinking she had heard them coming. But each time Old Wool Woman slowly realized it was nothing more than the cruel wind keening through the skeletal trees and the naked willow. No, it was not the voices of those who had followed Morning Star and Little Wolf and Standing Elk south for the White River Agency.

  Now the Ohmeseheso were divided.

  She could not remember a time when her people had chosen to walk more than one path. But never before had there been such a relentless enemy like the ve-ho-e soldiers.

  Old Wool Woman’s heart grew heavy when she thought how divided her people were. This is how the white man had truly defeated them. Not in battle, no—because no matter how heavy their loss, the women always fled and the warriors covered the retreat. After a time of mourning, the Ohmeseheso were ready to move on with their lives of war and wandering, chasing after the buffalo herds with the rotation of the seasons. No, the soldiers had not defeated her people in war. The white man had divided the survivors of that constant war, pitting them one against another.

  More than half of the Northern Bands had started away from that camp on the Rotten Grass toward the White River Agency where they would go to live with Red Cloud’s Little Star People. Less than half had chosen to follow the holy man White Bull to the soldier fort on the Elk River.

  She had had to tear herself from so many friends as the two camps spoke their farewells, as the mounted guards reined away and moved out in two different directions, as the warrior chiefs called for the march to begin, as the women wailed and the little ones cried, as family and friends were torn asunder. Hearts cold and small, hearts shattered by the ve-ho-e.

  But, she promised herself, just as White Bull had told them that first afternoon of their journey as they were going about setting up their camp for the night; while their hearts might be wounded, their spirits would remain unbroken.

  The white man would never defeat their spirits.

  After White Bull had spoken on the morning of that second day, the voices of the Crazy Dogs were heard. It seemed clear that warrior society was split: some agreed with the holy man that they should surrender to the Bear Coat, while most agreed with the Elkhorns that they should go in to the White River Agency. All day and into that second
night the warrior chiefs debated, but without resolution. Unable to reach the one mind required if the question was to be settled for all the People, the warrior chiefs had no choice but to hand the matter back to the council of chiefs.

  “Whatever the chiefs decide,” Left-Handed Shooter declared, “the warrior societies will support.”

  That third morning the headmen of the Ohmeseheso met once again. They passed the pipe, praying for wisdom in this most troubling of times, praying for a vision to choose the right path for their people. For another day and into the cold night these older men pulled the issue this way then tugged it that way. And finally recessed due to the weariness that gripped them all.

  On the fourth morning, the chiefs and headmen gathered anew, hopeful that on this sacred day they would arrive at a consensus, that they would discover a path that all could take together. But as time ground by and the sun fell past midsky, Old Wool Woman grew less hopeful that the chiefs would be of one mind. True, the three Old Man Chiefs all agreed they should take the village south to the Little Star agency. But it was still just as clear that some still believed in listening to what the Bear Coat had to offer to the north.

  As the shadows lengthened that fourth afternoon, it became plain that young Two Moon was growing more frustrated with the agency talk of the Elkhorn Scrapers. It did not surprise Old Wool Woman when Two Moon stood suddenly, there among the back rows of the little chiefs of the warrior societies, interrupting the Council Chiefs as politely as he could.

  “I want to echo White Bull’s words,” he blurted out.

  Stunned into silence, Little Wolf, Morning Star, and Standing Elk all turned to stare at the brazen warrior. This was a brave thing, to ask to speak in a council where he was not a member.

  Little Wolf, the Sweet Medicine Chief, growled, “You should not interrupt. This is not acceptable—”

  “These are unusual times,” Two Moon blurted. “The trouble before us requires behavior that is not always acceptable.”

  “Please,” White Bull pleaded with the Council Chiefs, “let Two Moon speak. If all our talk in more than three days cannot change your minds … what is the harm in listening to what this passionate warrior has to say?”